Have you ever walked into your grandma's house and been greeted by the smell of her home cooking? Beef and vegetable soup steam is wafting in the air and causing you to salivate and think, "Damn, that smells good?" My grandma is not so fond of cooking anymore because of her joints bothering her, but I still associate the smells of her cooking with her house; it is only second after the smell of her cedar chest that makes me happy.

My grandma is famous among family and friends for a few particular dishes: the aforementioned soup, bean soup, and beef and noodles. My grandpa runs a business where he does taxes for people, and back in the day, his employees would request the beef and noodles because it is that good.

I got lucky in that my mom cooked that for my sisters, my dad, and me when we were younger. Of course, I did not have the same appreciation for it then that I have now because I was picky and loathed gravy... But as I grew older, I began to eat it with joy in my heart.

This meal is something grandma just threw together and everyone loved it. My mom told me that my Uncle Steve would eat a whole bag of noodles with the beef and gravy just on his own. It is the kind of food that you make and there are rarely leftovers if at all, which I can tell you is the truth because Bruce ate the hell out of it last night.

It is the kind of food that makes me glad for my grandma. She won't be here forever, which is a sad truth nobody really wants to think about... She says so every time I see her, though... And I want to have as many memories as I can have with my sweet, kindhearted, soft spoken, goofball of a grandma. She is one of my favorite people in the world and I am so glad to have her in my life.

She means the world to me, and so does her cooking.

Normally people don't associate steak with struggle... After all, it's a treat, right? The great thing is that steak can be pretty cheap if you get a cut that is normally tough and have less fat or flavor than something like a porterhouse. 1 lb of beef bottom round or eye of round, for instance, is one of the least expensive cuts of beef that you can get at around $4. That is still kind of pricey, right? But think about stretching the meal.

My grandma was feeding a family of six with about a lb of the stuff at a time, and there is enough cooked that there COULD be leftovers once they are stretched out. So you have the beef, and you have a can of condensed broth, which is about $1 or so depending on what the label looks like... A bag of egg noodles is around $1, 50 cents worth of onion, 10 cents worth of garlic, pennies worth of the seasonings and flour. My grandma would use two bags of noodles, so tack on another buck and call it good. That makes it less than $8 to feed a family of 6, so just over a buck a plate. That is with inflation.

I am going to give you two recipes for this. First will be the original recipe which I highly suggest you make before you try it with my adjustments. Her recipe is simple and quick and mine is a little more complex out of experimentation to develop more flavor notes. My recipe is still cheap, it's only a difference of a few quarters.

1 lb beef bottom or eye of round, thinly sliced into strips
¼ cup flour for dredging
2 TBSP Canola oil
1 small onion, sliced
2-4 cups beef broth/stock
4 cups egg noodles, partially cooked
Salt, Pepper, Horseradish, garlic, parsley all to taste
 

1. In an electric fry pan, heat oil at medium high and add dredged and seasoned beef. Do not crowd the pan, fry in batches if necessary. Brown the meat. Remove from pan. **If you do not have an electric fry pan, use a skillet that has a cover available.**
2. Add onions to pan and sauté until translucent. Add garlic and horseradish, cook for a moment.
3. Add beef broth/stock to deglaze pan, return meat and any juices into the mix, lower heat to a low simmer and cover. Stir occasionally.
4. When beef is tender, add more liquid if you feel it is necessary, and then add parsley(if dry) and par cooked noodles. Broth should be thin gravy.
5. Add fresh parsley if you want and serve once noodles are done cooking to your liking. Serve and enjoy.
   

1 lb beef bottom or eye of round, thinly sliced into strips
2 egg whites
½ cup cornstarch
1-2 teaspoons or a big dash of Worcestershire sauce (traditionally, soy sauce is used)
 
Olive Oil
1 medium Onion, chopped
¼ cup bell pepper
2-4 cloves Garlic
1 TBSP Horse radish (Optional)
2-4 cups Beef broth or stock
1 bag egg noodles (Or no yolks)
2 TBSP butter
Salt, pepper, celery seed, parsley to taste
 

1. What you are going to do first is called “Velvetting,” which is something done in Chinese restaurants to tenderize beef or other meats. Beat together the egg whites, the cornstarch, and the Worcestershire sauce until thoroughly mixed.
2. Put your velvetting mixture into a freezer bag, add your beef, salt, and pepper, and shake it up to make sure all the meat is coated. Set aside and let sit for at least a half an hour.
3. Heat oil in your electric fry pan (or stove top), sauté onion on medium heat to caramelize
4. Add bell pepper and cook until softened, then add garlic and horseradish, and celery seed. Remove from pan after a moment
5. Just like in the original recipe, brown your beef strips in batches if necessary.
6. Return veggies and aromatics to the mix, add parsley
7. Pour stock/broth in and cover, let cook for an hour, stir occasionally.
8. Add more liquid if necessary, add noodles and cook until desired doneness. Again, liquid should be a thin gravy in the end.
9. Serve and enjoy
   

Even though this started off as something thrown together, it is just one of those things that feels like home. It is a gift I wanted to share with you because I felt that it deserved some recognition. Maybe it will give you good feelings and make you think about your own grandma like it does with me.

it is savory and the gravy is nice and silky, and it's sort of like eating a bowl of beef and noodle soup but with gravy instead of broth. Like I said, you should try her version first because it's the best. Mine is good too, but it isn't the same as grandma's...

With that being said...

Okay folks, I've got a lot happening on here as of late and I just wanted to shoot you all a quick update. First and foremost, you may have noticed that I have been rearranging things here on the site; I really didn't like having a landing page that really didn't make sense to what I wanted... I didn't even know you could change it until recently, and it pleased me very much to find out you could. So I have been trying to remove stuff that isn't necessary to the blog, and adding stuff that makes sense...

For instance, I have started making my recipes into PDF form for printable download...

Anyways, here is a list of things I have done so far:
Removed the craft part of the blog
Added downloadables
Fixed cosmetics

Stuff I am working on:
Collab page
Struggle Meal recipes
Leftover reboots

Stuff I am considering:
Adsense... Do I or don't I?

If you have anything you want me to test app wise, you might have to talk to Weebly first because there are not any food type applications compatible with weebly. Please DO push some on them, it'd be great to be able to have a recipe card on here instead of having to consider whether I want to transfer to Blogger or stay here. I like it better here as far as streamlining.

That is it for now... If you have any questions or comments, please do leave em with me via comments or email. Please consider signing up for the newsletter so I can update you every now and then.

Thanks,
Kimmie

Every time I mention the name "Slumgulean," people give me that puzzled look wondering what in the world I am talking about, and there is a story behind it and how it has been a part of my family for a long time. The answer to the question is that Slumgulean is a struggle meal; a poor man's breakfast/dinner that my grandma used to throw together in order to feed four boys and use up some ingredients that she had readily available.

Back in the day, my grandfather worked for Ekrich, delivering their product as a truck driver, and my grandparents would end up with a butt ton of sausage and balogna to eat throughout those years. One of the ways my grandma would fix smoked sausage would be to throw it into her Slumgulean and it would be stretched out with other ingredients that were inexpensive but nice and filling.

She would slice the sausage up and fry it along with the taters, add some other ingredients and round it off with some eggs, and boom! My father always spoke fondly of it and how he could never quite get it to taste just like hers... Hell, I can't ever get anything to taste just like my mom's, but that is because it differs from individual to individual, even if you think you added the exact measurement of each ingredient within the recipe.

I have had so many variations of this dish and have two or three favorite combinations of what is essentially a "garbage hash." It is not as unique as some might think, really, but it is special enough to me that I decided to write this blog post to honor my dad's original post on the old site, and to honor my grandma because she cooked with love. In fact, my dad had written his blog post right before the final crash of Foodie-zoo, and it would not sit well with me if I didn't say something about it.

It is true that my dad had a limited bank of recipes that he cooked and tasted awesome... He made the BEST home made bread, his biscuits were like fluffy little clouds, his beef stew and his chili were to die for, and his breakfasts were awesome. It was one way that him and I bonded, as I had bonded with mom over the stove too. When it came to the hash, he always brought grandma up and how hers was the best.

I don't remember the first time that he made it for me... I had always assumed he put his nasty, canned corned beef hash into it... You know, the stuff that looks like canned dog food and smells like it too? Yeah, so you can probably imagine that I wasn't even interested in trying it for the longest time. In fact, I refused to even look at it when I was a kid because of how my mind associated it with the stuff in the can.

I believe I was a teenager when I actually began to pay attention to some of the things that he cooked. The first things were his breakfasts, of course, and how he taught me that you do not need milk to make the perfect, soft scrambled egg that was still fluffy and tasty. I watched him throw various things into a pan, and I actually gave myself a chance to smell it and enjoy the aroma. When I tried it, I was in for a pleasant surprise... It was good... I mean, REALLY good.

Him and I would talk from over the counter since the kitchen at my mom's house is not that big, and he would tell me stories about grandma or grandpa, adventures in truck driving and such. There was a hilarious story about how grandpa would truck drive and smoke in his sleep, shifting gears with one hand and puffing on an invisible cigarette with the other. My dad would take a clothes pin and stick it between the forefinger and middle finger, and sure enough, Grandpa would "puff" on the clothes pin... We're talking about the round ones, not the ones with springs. I am sure if dad had done that one, there would have been hell to pay.

As it was, my grandpa would wake up with the clothes pin between his fingers and he would get mad and cuss.

My dad also told stories about my grandma and how she would knock people upside the head with a fireplace poker for cussing in her house. I guess that she was a spitfire while she was alive and she had all the respect in the world for it and for the fact that she was also the sweetest person alive when she wasn't provoked into being irate. I don't remember anything about her, I don't remember ever seeing her or cuddling her, but my dad explained to me that she loved my older sister and me to the moon and back, we were the apples of her eye because she had wanted granddaughters so badly after raising four boys. I wish I had gotten to be around her longer than three years because she had a wealth of things I could have learned from her, like quilting and knitting. I am happy to say that I at least have the legacy of her hash browns, even as insignificant as it may seem to others. It means the world to me to be able to connect with my grandma.

So if you are up in heaven listening to my thoughts as I type this blog post out, grandma, know that I am so glad to have a recipe to share with the world because you made one up.

Ingredients per two people:
2 TBSP Canola or Vegetable oil
1 TBSP Butter
6 oz of whatever meat you want (optional, I usually choose bacon if I have it, or breakfast sausage. I have seen dad use ham and smoked sausage before.)
1 potato of any size, shredded, sliced, or diced
1/8 cup of sliced or diced onion
1/8 cup bell pepper (Optional)
1 slice of whole wheat or white bread, torn into small pieces
Salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, garlic, rosemary, and paprika all to taste
1 egg. beaten
1 handful (About 1/2 cup) of cheese of choice (Optional)

I hope that this recipe makes you as happy as it has for three generations of my family. Maybe you will find yourself telling stories while cooking it in the future.  It is a small bit of comfort in these days where we are uncertain as to whether we can safely feed our families and be able to put some nutrition in, even if it isn't what a fitness guru would call "healthy eats." The point is to line your belly when you are hungry, and this stuff is super filling and very delicious.

Have a good day, my friends and...

“You can’t make good wine from bad grapes," Capt'n Kenny

A quick author's note:
A while back, I got contacted by a really cool dude via Twitter where he commiserated with me about an event that happened to both of us in the same part of last year with the passing of each of our fathers... I was really appreciative of him talking to me about it and kind of striking up a little bit of a friendship through shared experience.
It is coming up on a year since our super heroes placed their capes on the peg one last time... and it is still rough, I will be honest.
But it did bring a lot of good, one thing being the conversation with the Capt'n. Thank you goes to him for the words and kindness in the wake of loss. You are very much appreciated. These little bites are dedicated to you and your hero.

And a Belated happy new year! <3
Much Love,
Kimmie

As the Capt'n and I tossed ideas around, I was getting somewhat frustrated at first, trying to figure out what kind of dessert that would be good for after eating some lovely crab raviolis. I don't eat a lot of seafood personally, so that was my one roadblock. And then it hit me that I was overthinking... big time... with bigger ideas than necessary. That got me to thinking about how rough overthinking was back in culinary school; it was my downfall, which... well... formed a good idea.

This is exactly how it went from that point:

Q: Firstly, what flavors are usually associated with fish?
A: L-lemons?
Q: Bingo... Now since you are thinking about culinary school, why not think of something you did in ACA/LCB100 that would potentially taste good... as a dessert... with lemons...? Ideas?
YouTube: Pops up with a cream puff video
A: OOOH, OOOH! *raises hand furiously and waves it* Cream puffs! I did two bite eclairs in ACA/LCB100! Wait wait wait.... I love strawberry lemonade! Strawberries and lemons taste GREAT together! Strawberry lemonade cream puffs!

Let me tell you that this blog post is not a one day project, my friends, but it excited me to do it...

I pulled out my giant textbook that I bought in the college book store, the one that I have kept all of these years and used rarely since my family isn't into fancy foods as much as I am. I thumbed through that massive volume until I came to the Choux recipe and then remembered how it wasn't even as hard as it seems when you are a newb at cooking like I was. And so began the very long process: First writing the recipe on a card, looking for a good custard base, etc. It was a two day process for me, though that is because I wanted to take my time and make it perfect. I made the cream filling the night before, the next day I did the rest.

Choux seems like it is hard because it's time consuming and there are confusing parts to it if you have never really made it before. You have to time the cooking just so, too short and your paste is affected negatively... You have to cool it just so, adding eggs to anything hot can cause scramble, which... would be bad... And then you freak out because each egg makes it look like you RUINED THE CHOUX at first. So of course, you are going to freak out! But then it comes together into this beautiful concoction, a paste that turns into a delicate shell once it is baked.

Perfection isn't always made from harmony, just so you know.

The custard is the next component that seems harder than it actually is. It's not that it is confusing like the choux, but people tend to be a little impatient sometimes because there is a lot of stirring just like the choux. But it isn't too hard, just keep the temperature lower, have some patience, and stir until it too becomes something fabulous.

"But Kimmie, this all sounds like A LOT of work just for something you eat in one bite!" - TRUST me that it is worth every ounce of work that you put into it.

My husband plowed through half of the presentation plate after my pictures were taken. They were that good.

Let's get you to the recipe... I have included a PDF download for you to be able to print this time! I am going to leave out the equipment list since this is already a lot of reading.

1 cup water
1 stick of butter, cut into pieces
1 teaspoon sugar
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups flour
4 large eggs + 1 white for the paste
1 egg + 1 TBSP water for egg wash
 

1. Preheat oven to 400F.
2. Bring water, butter, sugar, and salt to a boil, remove from heat, lower the temperature to mid-high.
3. Stir in flour using a wooden spoon – metal spoons are not good for this recipe.
4. Cook over the mid-high heat while stirring constantly to prevent browning. When the dough pulls away from the sides of the pan and leaves a film (if you are using a nonstick, it takes about 5-10 minutes), remove again from the heat. You will know it is good when it forms a ball of dough in the pan.
5. Transfer the mix into a bowl. Use a hand mixer or stand mixer at low speed to cool the paste for 1 minute. If you do not have a mixer, use the spoon and stir for a minute or so.
6. Raise the speed to medium and then add the 4 eggs one at a time. Do not be alarmed when the stuff looks like it broke! That is completely normal. Just keep mixing it. Once each egg is thoroughly mixed in, then you add the next. You may need all of the eggs including the white, or maybe less eggs depending on the humidity. Your goal is for it to be a thick paste that still passes through a pastry bag without trouble but not run out.
7. Transfer the paste into the pastry bag… You can use a freezer bag if you do not have that. A tip is not necessary.
8. Pipe out your pastry in the desired shape. **For this recipe, you will need to pipe the pastry out in circles of about 1-1 ½ inch diameter. It will not spread, really, but try to space them out about ½ inch or so. I got about 26 of them altogether on my full sheet pan. (Essentially the whole batch)** Wet finger with water and tap down any peaks so they do not burn
9. Brush egg wash over in a light layer, trying not to create drips or excess pooling on the pan.
10. Place in oven and bake for 10 minutes, then lower heat to 350F for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. They should make a hollow sound if you tap lightly on them.
    
11. Set aside to cool on cooling rack.
    

½ cup white sugar
¼ cup cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
2 egg yolks
¾ cup water
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1/3 cup lemon juice
2 TBSP butter

1. Prepare a double boiler – if you do not have one, you can use a pan filled with about 1 inch or less of water, and top with a glass bowl big enough to fit over the top without touching the water. Bring water to a boil and lower heat to simmer.
2. Combine sugar, corn starch, and salt and mix well.
3. Whisk eggs and water together and then add to mix, whisking well. Stir constantly to prevent scrambling.
4. Remove from heat when the mixture is thick and you can form a path in it with your spoon without the custard closing in over it. (Think about the thickness of set pudding.)
5. Stir in the lemon juice, vanilla, and butter. **I forgot to add the vanilla in the PDF originally, pretty sure I missed when to add it in there, but here it is, sorry for the tiny goof!**  "Don’t be penny wise and flavour foolish!” - Capt'n Kenny
   
6. If you have any lumps, just pass it through a mesh sieve.

The custard in addition to 16 oz whipped topping (The whipped topping stands up better to the acidity of the lemon), or whipped cream
 
6-8 strawberries, sliced (You may end up with needing a pint or less of strawberries if you are choosing to do the entire batch at one time.)
1/8 cup water
1-2 TBSP sugar
 
1 batch of pastry, sliced in half horizontally
 
Optional: Confectioner’s sugar
 

1. Fold whipped topping into the custard and set aside in the fridge while you do the other work.
2. Slice your strawberries vertically if you haven’t already, toss with the water and sugar, set aside.
3. Slice up as many of the shells as you feel necessary, making sure to keep the mates together.
4. Get all three things in front of you, simply fill the bottoms of the shells with about 1 ½ - 2 TBSP of the custard (with a spoon or with pastry bag), place strawberry slice in and place shell tops on.
5. Dust with confectioner’s sugar if desired, but I did not think it was necessary.
   

 "There are zero boundaries in the quest for flavour." - Capt'n Kenny

This was a labor of love, my friends. I knew what I was getting into when I started this blog project and the outcome made the extra time worth it... the editing, the goofs, the hours in the kitchen, etc... I know it took a long time for me to post, but hopefully you will forgive me once you taste these puppies. I actually had a blast throughout this process, especially when I ate the first bite and danced a happy dance.

They are so so delicious, the tart of the lemon cream, the sweetness of the strawberry, the texture of the pastry... It's a delectable bite filled with a myriad of flavors that dance on the pallet like a perfect, tall glass of lemonade in a tiny sandwich form. It would most certainly be the perfect ending to a romantic, seafood dinner. In this case? Crab ravioli!

I hope that Kenny and his gang get to try these! I would love to know how they think they taste.

As for me, I am going to leave you with a favorite thing to think about when it comes to lemons. When life deals you lemons, make some lemonade, life is too short to be so sour... And with that...

It has been cold for the last several weeks and it is shifting into the time where making soup and stew is a weekly ritual. I happen to like a lot of different soups, but had been craving something I hadn't had in at least seven or eight years. Broccoli cheese soup is my absolute favorite soup for a few reasons...

One, I love broccoli, and I love cheese.
Two, It fills me up for a while.
And three, it makes me warm when it's cold.

I never really used somebody else's recipe because I thought it would be easy... I was right, but still, I should have looked at a recipe or two for some idea of ingredients besides the broccoli and cheese. To add cream or not to add cream? What cheese works best? Do I have to blend it? So many questions that I had in my head.

I wish I had some kind of awesome story to tack on with this recipe, but I don't. This wasn't something from my childhood, just something I sampled from a certain bread restaurant that we all know, and I found it way too salty so I made my own. Simple as that. What else is there?

So instead of a story about soup, I am going off on another tangent for a minute because I feel like the ending can be compared.

 Right now, life is rough. You already know that I miss my dad and that I cannot say enough about that, but other things are happening too. Being an adult can suck sometimes, and right now, that is how I feel. I mean, we all get hit with it from time to time, and sometimes even all at once. For me, it's that every time that Bruce and I have something fixed, another thing is broken. Every. Single. Time. For instance, I swallowed my pride to talk to my mom about my car. I didn't exactly ask for money because I don't feel right to, but I did gripe about it. She gave us the money, and we got all the big things fixed that needed fixing; the muffler, the suspension, and some other important things that make the car safe to drive. We get that fixed and it's running great! I mean, there is still a little work left on the muffler, but it's so much better and we can actually hear ourselves think when we're on the highway, and relax instead of having our hearts in our throats in the hopes of not being pulled over for noise violation and get slapped with a ticket. All of that is great, right? Hallelujah! (FOREVER GRATEFUL!!!)

But then, bad news comes. "Hey, my uncle is in a coma, we need to come to the hospital." -- That was the day before my birthday that we went. "Hey, let's take you out to eat." Can't enjoy my food, dad isn't around to call and wish me a happy birthday, Bruce's uncle is on HIS way out and reminding me of Daddy, and then all kinds of little things: the water pressure being out of whack, not getting a hot shower and only getting cold bird baths from the sink... Stuff clogging, stuff breaking... People asking for money you don't have and you feel like a terrible person for letting them down. You start to wonder why on earth it's all happening at once and just want to yell at the air for being polluted.

And then you get a reminder of little things that don't suck. Being hugged by your spouse and cuddling up while asleep because the weather is cold, wrapping up in an afghan your late grandmother knitted because it's like being hugged, and eating a bowl of soup because it is also like a hug.

That is why I wanted to make soup. So I did...

Life is not all peaches and cream, but you can still dream of the cobbler they can make.

I want to preface this recipe with a few things... First, I wanted to make it gluten free and not use a roux as a thickening agent. Two, I wanted it to be a little easier... Three, I wanted it to still be creamy, but I didn't want to add heavy cream. Little changes!

Yes... You read the text right!

First, the taters... The taters replaces the starch that the flour in the roux would have given you, which helps the cheese to bind into the soup. I tested this out because I would like to pass it on to those who are on a gluten free diet can enjoy it too. (See, I DO love you. :P)

The greek yogurt is because I put sour cream instead of heavy cream, and I wanted that tangy flavor. The creaminess of the yogurt makes it more decadent.

I can honestly tell you that it still filled me up, that it tasted great, and that I couldn't even tell there were potatoes in there. The only reason I cannot call it diet food is for the fact that cheese is pretty fatty. But you CAN cut down on some of the fat so you can feel LESS guilty, and still feel like you did nothing out of the ordinary to your soup.

I normally don't use turmeric in my broccoli cheese soup, and that also helps because it enhances the flavor of the broccoli in all the right ways.

It is coincidental that I made Schnitzel and Spaetzel in October, but it stands to reason to label this as an Oktoberfest meal that you can pair with a good, German beer. I'd been craving it for quite some time but never really thought about actually making it. The idea actually only popped up as I worked on my collaboration project, seeing as I had a bunch of lemons leftover and Bruce had picked up a bunch of pork loin in a nice sale.

The last time I even ate Schnitzel was LCB100 in Culinary School (Very first cooking class in culinary school, or rather, the introductory course.) I don't quite remember which of the three meats we were told to use, though I am sure it was not veal, but I remembered that it really wasn't that hard to make that part of the dish. Instead of the dumplings, we made sauerkraut, which I do remember was better than the jarred junk by far.

I had never made the spaetzel before... not from scratch anyhow, so I was more into making that than the Schnitzel for this post, but it would be remiss of me not to give you the recipe for both, right? If I had remembered how to do the kraut and had the cabbage to do so, that would definitely have been added and this post would have been a threefer!

What I absolutely love about schnitzel is that it is part of my heritage; I do have a good chunk of German running through my bloodline. I do like to touch into the things that are associated with different parts of my blood so that I can share the diversity with you all. The other things that I love about it is that it is comforting to eat, and that it is interactive. Make the meal, serve it, let folks squeeze their own lemon onto the finished product and enjoy it with them.

It's a delightful treat to make every now and then and so easy to make. The spaetzel is fun to make, though it is sticky and messy, yet totally worth it in the end when you taste it. The hardest part is getting the dough made, and that isn't even hard either.

Both of the foods in question are fast to cook and truly simple to make that it will be done before you know it (depending on how many batches of each that you make.) Fair warning, also, this is not a diet food, it is meant to be treated as an occasional thing just like any other fried delight.

I served mine with green beans too, but that was the vegetable on hand. It's like I stated, it can be served with kraut, and it is paired well with a German stout. This month is a great month for such a meal, but don't wait for Oktoberfest to come for you to make this dish because you can make it whenever you want. That is the greatest beauty of running your own kitchen! And please, please, please don't forget the squeeze of lemon. It is what makes it pop, it brightens the flavor!

I absolutely adore the simplicity of each part of the meal. The buttery flavor of the dumplings after they are sautéed? Yes, yes, all the yes. I promise you that it might look daunting, but it really is super easy once you have everything ready to cook! It is also quite worth the effort.

I hope that this brings you as much joy as it did me, and I hope that you enjoy the recipes.

As soon as the idea popped into my head, I opened up my cook books and began to look for the perfect base recipe to work off of. I needed an idea on what ingredients were involved and how much to put in. It happened to be in my Better Homes and Gardens cook book (if you do not have that one, you should get one as it is a legacy). It wasn’t even a monkey bread recipe, but rather, a cinnamon roll recipe.
 
My brain went into excitement mode for the things I could take out and replace, or add to it to make it better. I want to be taken back to that first bite, to hearing my father laugh the way he used to, because it was to him who I owe my cooking passion.

Fair warning, this is a time consuming recipe but totally worth the effort. This is also not diet food, though you can use sweeteners to lower the amount of sugar you use. Just follow the conversions as needed, usually the sweetener bags will have them. They are also widely available on the web.

The Recipe
 
Ingredients

1. Base
2. 4 ¼ - 4 ¾ cups flour
3. 1 packet dry active yeast
4. 1 cup milk
5. 1 cup cooked potatoes, mashed
6. 1/3 cup unsalted butter, cut up
7. 1/3 cup granulated sugar
8. 1 teaspoon salt
9. 2 eggs

 
Variation #1 with an adult twist

1. ½ cup packed brown sugar
2. 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
3. ¼ cup softened, unsalted butter
4. ½-1 cup rum soaked raisins (optional for either the rum or the raisins)

 
Icing

1. 2 cups confectioner’s sugar
2. 1-2 tablespoons rum (milk if you don’t want rum) - I used half and half

 
Variation #2, Blood Orange Cranberry
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon or so Blood Orange zest
1 teaspoon fresh (grated with micro plane) or ground ginger
¼ cup softened, unsalted butter
½ cup blood orange juice soaked dried cranberries
 
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
A dash of ground ginger
1-2 Tablespoons Blood Orange Juice
(You can use any orange if you are not fond of blood oranges)
 
Equipment

• Cooking Spray
• Large mixing bowl
• Sauce Pan
• Measuring cup/spoons
• Electric Mixer
• Well greased bundt pan
• Roller
• Sheet pan
• Sharp knife or bench scraper
• Cutting board if using a knife
• Plastic wrap or damp tea towel, parchment paper

I need to be candid...

Life has really been interesting as of late, and sometimes you have to stop and take a minute to let yourself smell the roses.

With the death of dad, I found myself pretty overwhelmed and unable to wrap my mind around a lot of things. It's been five months now, and it still really hurts, but my dad would not want me to walk away from something I worked so hard to create. He invested his heart and soul into my blogging and creativity, and I got to the point where looking at this blog had been gnawing at me in the wrong way. I don't want to give this up; I just need to get my heart back into the story, you know?

I have been trying, therefor, to spend time outside of trying to be a great cook. I needed to be around my mom and sisters more, to get closer to them than I have ever felt. I needed to see my growing nieces and nephews and feel the joy in how much they are like me even though I didn't birth them. My sweet little baby niece, Avalee, just turned a year old this month, and she melts my heart. The way she dug into her smash cake just gave me so much to smile about.

She really gives me so many reasons to laugh, and it's been so wonderful to watch her grow. I would have never gotten to see her this much if my dad hadn't passed away; my sister and her husband wouldn't be living with my mom and helping her with things that needed to be fixed around the house but got put aside due to dad being so sick all the time. I would have missed out, and that would have just made things feel more empty.

My husband and I just celebrated our second year together, and we did something really wonderful together. We went to the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary that day, and the miniatures museum that was near there.  I'd never seen so many Trumpeter Swans in one place before, nor an owl, nor a bald eagle. It's stuff like this that I really needed to experience to help me heal... I am so very glad that I took the opportunity to step back and observe the things that I would have never noticed, and that would have truly been worse than feeling the grief I feel. My dad would have wanted me to do all of these things because, in the end, he was a man who saw beauty in so many things he never used to before he was ill. I guess somewhere along the line, we all tend to forget that life isn't just about our work, and I think that is what happened to me in the last several months.

I do have some things that I am finding excitement in. I have already written the blog post for the Monkey Bread recipe I think I talked about in my previous post (don't quote me on that.) All I need to do is get it made and take lots of pictures so I can share it with you all, as well as the story behind why it is a special thing to me.

I have made a few friends along the way, one of them being a really cool guy named Captain Kenny, who specializes in fresh seafood, not only in cooking it but in the catch. I really enjoy his YouTube videos and recommend you check them out. I will not only provide a link to his blog, but his YouTube channel.

Please do show some love to Captain Kenny's Fresh, subscribe to his YouTube and click on the bell icon to get notifications of his new releases! Like and share, too!

I do want to thank everyone who has given their love and support to me over the last several months when everything was rough. There are too many people to name at this point, but they know who they are. Thank you to everyone who has been encouraging me to get back into writing, your efforts are not in vain! I might be slow to start and I know most will understand, but there will be more blog posts to come.

With that all being said...

I have been holding onto a secret for quite some time… or rather, secret recipe.
 
Did you ever watch the show, Everybody Loves Raymond? Marie Barone was one of my favorite characters. I mean, she could cook some beautiful foods, though she was very secretive of this. One recipe in particular got my gears moving and my curiosity on high alert. It was steak pizzaiola, a name that I memorized and thought about quite a bit.
 
Carne Pizzaiola means “meat in pizza style,” and is mostly made with cheaper cuts of beef, but can be other meats such as chicken. Basically, it is a wide range of combinations that you can use. The best way to put it is that the meat is a replacement for pizza crust. I have no idea on where in Italy this dish was first made, or even when, but I thank the Italians for such lovely fare.
 
I decided to look a recipe up and you’re probably going to giggle at where I found it at… I hijacked Martha Stewart’s recipe for her easier version (she has both that and traditional). I made it the first time several years ago, but right away I decided to change what I saw because her recipe seemed so… well… herbless?  She was using round steak, which is quite lacking of flavor to begin with, and there wasn’t much in the way of even Oregano. I don’t even remember if she used it or not.
 
I thought about how I like my pizza in general and went for it. My family gobbled it up, including my very picky dad who didn’t like flavor much (aka, he had a bland pallet, the poor man). Guess what? It’s actually very easy to make, and you don’t even have to tenderize the meat because it’s a slow cooked, one pot/pan meal!

• After you have prepped your ingredients, (vocabulary of the day, Mise En Place – Everything in place), make sure your pan is nice and hot and then add your olive oil.
  
• Once the olive oil is shimmering, then you add your steak. Sear for a few minutes (4-5) until you get a nice crust. This gives it some good flavor.
• Remove the steak to a big plate along with juices, and do one of the following…

Ain’t nobody got time fo dat, method:

1. Lower the heat some, add your onions and diced peppers, stirring until onions become translucent
2. Add your garlic and sautee with the veggies for a few moments to get the raw taste out.
3. Drop in your tomato paste and stir. When it starts to smell sweet, it’s ready.
4. Pour in the tomatoes, juice and all, and water/beef stock(as necessary), stirring until mixed.
5. Add a small amount of salt and pepper
6. Put the steak and juices back into the skillet and cover with the sauce. Then cover pan and simmer on low heat for 2 hours, checking periodically to make sure it doesn’t scald. About 1 hr 45 min into this, add your herbs.
7. Once the steak is done (it should be fork tender at this point) add the cheese on top of each steak, recover and let that melt.
8. Serve with your choice of sides

 
Totally optional but worth it, refined method:

1. For Electric Stove: Before you even start cooking the beef, place whole pepper into the oven at 425F for 20-30 minutes until skin is charred. For Gas Stove: You can char the skin using one of your burners while your beef is cooking, and once charred, place into a bowl and loosely cover with cling film or the bowl’s cover. Set aside to let the skin loosen.
2. Turn the heat in the pan down, add some more olive oil, toss in your skillet, add salt to draw moisture out and then keep stirring them every minute or so. Do not leave the stove, not even to answer your phone, as your onions can and will burn if you do not pay attention to them. In about 20 minutes or so, turn the skillet off and let the residual heat finish caramelizing the onions.
3. Pull your pepper out of the bowl, and using a paper towel or tea towel, remove the skin, discard the seeds and membranes. DO NOT remove skin with water, that takes flavor away and we don’t want that.
4. Turn the heat back on to your pan, add the peppers to the onions, along with garlic and stir until the garlic is cooked a little.
5. Follow steps 3-8 from the easy method.

Serve with pasta or bread if desired!
Note: I omitted the paste because that is how I like the sauce, so it might look different on my plate than it will look on yours if you use the paste.

Mothers Day was yesterday; my sisters and I wanted to do some things that were special for my mom, given that it's been a rough time since dad left us. We put together a brunch and my older sister asked me to make something to bring, and one of mom's favorite things that I make is an easy chocolate mousse, or what other people would call a whipped dessert since it isn't traditional mousse.

I was going to make a strawberry sauce for it and maybe some other fruit, but my strawberries were freezer burnt and my plans had to change. I remembered the bananas I had sitting around, all ripe and brown looking in their overly sweet glory. I remembered that my mom liked banana pudding, so the bell went off in my head: I would make banana mousse and I could put the chocolate in as chunks, which would make it appropriate for a brunch dessert after all.

Before I get into the recipe, though, I want to talk about my mom. My dad was not the only person who contributed to this passion of mine, it was my mom that taught me a few basics like boiling water and making boxed foods like mac n cheese, or spaghetti. The story she told me about her own cooking was that she wasn't a very good cook when she was first married to my dad, but she never really said that was why she was teaching me some things.

She did the best she could at the time, but it was hard for her when dad had gotten sick from driving truck and could no longer work. She'd work rough hours at a nearby nursing home during second and third shift, thus leaving my dad to do the cooking while she did everything she could to keep food on the table. I remember how she would buy a lot of pork chops because those were some of the cheapest, and a lot of ground beef for the same reason, but she didn't get to eat them with us.

Mom told us later that it was really hard for her to keep the hours she did because she missed her babies. By the time she got home, she was asleep, she couldn't see us off to school, and she didn't g et to see us much at all during her second shift job. Finally, she decided to go to school to better her life as well as ours, was able to get a better job with better hours and we were able to eat better food.

Needless to say, I appreciate my mom's role in encouraging my knowledge of cooking and being supportive of me when I decided to go to culinary school. Mom, I hope that you read this because writing out my feelings tends to be much more eloquent than my sometimes stumbling words.

This dessert is so very easy and delicious that you might be surprised. The secret to making this non traditional mousse is cream cheese or Neufchatel instead of gelatin, which not only gives it the thickness it needs, but it adds depth to the flavor of the dessert. 

The end result is something wonderful... If you are a fan of bananas, anyways. I absolutely loved the texture it had after it chilled overnight. You can, in fact, freeze this one and make a lovely ice cream of sorts, it is that velvety. The flavor of the bananas is subtle after only an hour, and stronger overnight. The dark chocolate balances out the sweetness (No added sugar, by the way!) to the dessert and makes for a rich flavor combination. Fair warning, it's not quite diet food either, but a little bit does go a long way.

I am pleased as punch to update you on QDFoodie's cute kitchen food. The kick starter campaign is now in full swing, and they could use some help from friends all over to make their dream into reality. For as little as a $2 donation and simply spreading the word through social media, you will be a big help.

You could end up with a gratitude gift of one of my favorites out of this collection, the banana measuring spoons that are both metric and standard, as well as in braille. These wonderful tools are for a good cause, helping kids of all sorts to develop a love for cooking as well as adults who happen to like cuteness such as these.

I am looking forward to testing these babies out, and you will help make that happen.

Be sure to check them out at their Kickstarter Campaign!